EPP to expand Rockies NGL system

Christopher E. SmithOGJ Pipeline Editor

HOUSTON, May 6 -- Enterprise Products Partners LP plans to expand the Rocky Mountain segment of its Mid-America Pipeline NGL (MAPL) system, adding as much as 85,000 b/d of incremental transportation capacity. The project will include looping the existing pipeline system with as much as 290 miles of 16-in. OD pipe, and pump station modifications.

The additional capacity is designed to accommodate growing natural gas and NGL production from major basins in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico, EPP said, with several new gas processing plants being constructed in the Uinta, Piceance, and Greater Green River basins likely to fill the expansion by 2014.

Subject to regulatory approval, EPP expects the project to begin service in third-quarter 2014.

The Rocky Mountain portion of the MAPL system extends more than 3,000 miles and transports NGLs from the Overthrust and San Juan basin areas to EPP’s Hobbs fractionator in Gaines County, Tex. An interconnect to EPP’s roughly 1,300-mile Seminole Pipeline at Hobbs will allow shippers to the partnership's NGL fractionation facility in Mont Belvieu, Tex.

EPP is in the process of increasing its Mont Belvieu fractionation capabilities by 75,000 b/d, bringing total capacity at the complex to 375,000 b/d in this year’s fourth quarter (OGJ Online, Dec. 1, 2010).